Editor,
Recently, the San Mateo City Council approved spending $500,000 to perform an historic policy update. This was in response to a handful of persistent, wealthy residents known as the San Mateo Heritage Alliance. The staff report noted that $2.2 million in an obscure fund could be used for this task. So, with a flick of a finger, a city projecting a $15 million shortfall found the resources to move forward on a highly contentious policy proposal at the behest of this small group.
At a subsequent study session on anti-displacement policies, required to meet obligations in the housing element, the result was strikingly different. The policies under consideration were spearheaded by a large coalition representing thousands of San Mateo residents. What came forth in the staff report were obstacles, seemingly insurmountable ones, all the way across the board. Any policy to protect 50,000 renters from unjust evictions was deemed to require significant staff time, have a high cost to roll out, be costly to manage and cumbersome to implement.
The staff report failed to provide insight into how the proposed policies would operate to enhance housing security for half of the city’s population, and since the focus was on the obstacles more than the benefits, naturally it led to no meaningful policy decisions.
My city has continued to appease the wealthy interests and has once again treated its renters as expendable and shamelessly kicked them to the curb. For our city to survive, these priorities need to be re-examined and realigned.
John Ebneter
San Mateo
The letter writer is a member of the San Mateo Planning Commission. Views are his own.
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(2) comments
Thanks for your letter, Mr. Ebneter, but if you’re a member of the San Mateo Planning Commission, what are you doing to remove obstacles? And what are the seemingly insurmountable obstacles across the board? Do your colleagues support your views? I’d like to remind folks that there are issues with rent control if that’s a solution you’re alluding to. And didn’t California recently vote down a proposition to impose rent control? Perhaps that is an insurmountable obstacle – ineffectiveness of rent control. That and the high costs to build housing, of any kind.
What makes me sad is seeing the Planning Commission and Council blow by resident concerns time after time. We now have ugly buildings with little massing, several huge empty lots, and abandoned buildings that are due to be demolished. And now we have Measure T, a developer’s dream coming into action where a 10-story building can easily become 16 stories - check out ReImagine Hillsdale. Preserving the little history that has made us a sought after community to live is something I’d hope would be a no-brainer for Planning Commissioners but that’s not what I’m reading here. We as residents need to make some big changes before our beloved city is completely trashed.
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